Former U.S. President "Jimmy Carter" Dies Aged 100

Jimmy Carter, Former President, died Sunday at the age of 100.

Carter, who lived longer than any other U.S. president, entered a nursing home in Plains, Georgia, in February 2023 after a series of brief hospital stays.

Carter, the only Georgian elected to the White House, left office after a single term, marked by peacemaking between Israel and Egypt but overshadowed by the Iran hostage crisis.

In the decades since, his fame has grown through his and his wife Rosalynn Carter’s work at the Carter Center in Atlanta and his charitable causes such as Habitat for Humanity.

“Jimmy Carter will be celebrated for hundreds of years. His reputation will grow,” wrote Rice University history professor Douglas Brinkley in his book “The Unfinished Presidency of Jimmy Carter.”

Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway, in 2002 for his diplomatic work through the Carter Center.

Who was Jimmy Carter?

James Earl Carter Jr. was born in Plains on October 1, 1924.

He was the first of four children born to Earl Carter, a farmer and businessman, and Lillian Gordy Carter, a registered nurse.

He received an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy.

He graduated and joined the Navy’s submarine branch, where within seven years he worked his way up to the “Rickover Boys,” the elite junior unit of the U.S. nuclear submarine fleet commanded by the famous Admiral Hyman Rickover.

His father, Earl, a farmer, businessman and a central figure in the Plains community, died of cancer.

Carter left the Navy and its far-flung assignments such as Hawaii, and he and Rosalynn and their growing family returned to Georgia in 1953 to take over the family farming business.

There he ran first for school board and then for state senator.

Elected governor in 1970, he served one successful term before launching an unlikely bid to become president.

He won the Democratic nomination and then defeated Republican President Gerald Ford in November 1976.

On his inauguration day, instead of driving through the crowds in an armored limousine, Jimmy and Rosalynn emerged from the car with their daughter Amy and walked down Pennsylvania Avenue, holding hands.

Carter’s successes included promoting human rights, expanding the national parks system, restoring the credibility of government after Watergate, and the Camp David Accords that led to a peace deal between Egypt and Israel.

Crises at home and abroad

These efforts were clouded by problems at home and abroad. At home, Carter and his advisers, many of whom were outsiders, faced resistance from his own party.

In November 1979, Iranian gunmen stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took hostages.

He tried to negotiate, then launched a daring rescue mission that never reached its goal because the helicopter broke down. He was unable to resolve the situation until the last day of his administration.

At home, a faltering economy exacerbated by the Middle East oil embargo and the rise of the Republican Party under Ronald Reagan led to his defeat in November 1980.

Carter returned to Little Plains and used the power of the former president's pulpit as a springboard for his latest, and some say best, work.

Carter began volunteering for Habitat for Humanity, a relatively new organization based in Americus that built housing for the poor.

With Rosalynn, he founded the Carter Center in Atlanta, which focused on peacemaking, health, and democracy around the world.

As president and chairman of the Carter Center, he won the Nobel Prize, the United Nations Human Rights Prize, and numerous other prestigious awards from countries, organizations, and world leaders.

Carter and his wife also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Bill Clinton.

“Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter have done more good for more people in more places than any other married couple on Earth,” Clinton said.